


i just see you

by fishscalesky



Series: snapshots [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A lil swearing, But Sweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Insecurity, M/M, i think it’s feel-good, it’s just hurt/comfort i guess, it’s the middle of the night and i’m self projecting okay, lip piercing, remus has a lip ring, remus has some self-esteem issues, talking it out, this is a lot of tags for something so short, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27024058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishscalesky/pseuds/fishscalesky
Summary: Remus stares at himself in the speckled bathroom mirror, his stomach buzzing uncomfortably. He examines the scars that look especially livid in the harsh white light —do they always look that bright?— and that brand new still-unfamiliar glint of metal pulling at his mouth. He was feeling brilliant, on top of the fucking world when he got it, but now that they’re home, the rush of adrenaline that comes with spontaneity has faded and he feels sick.[read tags]featuring domestic wolfstar and some “talking it out” shit <3 <3
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: snapshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011624
Comments: 9
Kudos: 127





	i just see you

**Author's Note:**

> so this is actually my first work on ao3! it’s written fairly late at night so if there’s mistakes or inconsistencies, my bad <3

Remus stares at himself in the speckled bathroom mirror, his stomach buzzing uncomfortably. He examines the scars that look especially livid in the harsh white light _do they always look that bright_ and that brand new still-unfamiliar glint of silver metal pulling at his mouth.  


He was feeling brilliant, on top of the fucking world when he got it, but now that they’re home, the rush of adrenaline that comes with spontaneity has faded and he feels sick. 

He wonders if Sirius has finished making that tea yet— _“Go on to the loo, I’ll make you a cuppa.”_ Remus has been standing staring at the mirror for five minutes now. He should move but it’s harder than he expected to step away.

“What’s wrong, love?” Sirius’s footsteps are quiet and hushed on the bathroom floor— he must be wearing socks— as he comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around Remus’s waist and fitting his chin in the juncture of Remus’s neck and shoulder. “Do you feel okay? Need some sugar? The piercer said you might want to eat something.”

Hugs from behind are Sirius’s thing. This time it’s gentle, other times he’ll catapult himself at Remus’s unsuspecting back, which more often than not results in an intense tickle fight (a precursor to snogging in acceptable settings). 

“Mm, Pads,” Remus sighs, turning his head to press his nose into Sirius’s hair. He inhales, the tumultuous, roiling anxiety in the pit of his stomach calming just a little now that he’s not looking at himself and has _Sirius_ to focus on. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He glances down at Sirius’s feet to confirm his suspicions. He’s wearing the socks Remus got him for his twenty-first birthday, the ridiculous knee-high patterned ones covered in dogs and expletives. Remus smiles in spite of himself, in spite of the shaky feeling dominating his stomach.

Sirius presses a gentle kiss to Remus’s warm skin and lets his mouth trail up to Remus’s jaw. Remus shivers a little and leans into his gentle touch. Sirius will never fail to get him like this- relax him to the point his limbs are unresisting, honey-warm love spreading through him with just a few brushes of contact. Merlin, he loves Sirius with such ferocity it almost hurts. 

Sirius hums softly. “Are you?”

“Why do you ask?” Remus says mildly. 

“I come in here and find you looking like a statue, love,” Sirius’s shoulders lift and drop as he kisses just under his ear, making Remus shiver lightly. “Dunno, just wondered.”

Remus lifts one hand from where he’d been holding Sirius’s hands, joined at his middle, to push his curls out of his face. He should get a haircut soon, but he hasn’t been able to fit it in between moving into the flat, making it over James and an increasingly pregnant Lily’s house, enveloping himself in all things Sirius, and making stupid spontaneous decisions. 

He frowns at his reflection. It’s not that Remus is completely un-self-aware. He knows he’s reasonably attractive, depending on how you look at it. It’s not as if it’s constantly in the back of his mind but it’s _there._ He can’t drop insecurities like he can drop a pair of trousers that don’t fit anymore. It’s not that easy.

He loves Sirius and Sirius loves him back, more than anything, he _knows_ that. Sirius Black could have anyone and he wants Remus. That  has to count for something. 

But Remus doesn’t a problem finding things about himself he doesn’t like, either. 

It can be a difficult line to walk when he doesn’t have anything to stop himself. 

“You don’t think...” Remus whispers, clearing his throat and speaking more surely, leaning back into Sirius’s steady embrace and tilting his chin up to look at the ceiling, water marks and cracked paint, their initials written in the top left corner, where they’ve been since the very hour they moved in, because Sirius is a hopeless romantic. He wanted to leave his and Remus’s mark.

Sirius just breathes, waiting for him to continue. He’s utterly relaxed, in stark contrast to Remus, who’s wound up tight like a coiled spring waiting to release any second. 

“You don’t think it’s too much?” Remus gestures to his face, his whole  self,  but what he means is the lip ring. He was so confident- _I’m making an on-the-spot decision for once, goddamn enjoy it-_ but now he’s paralyzingly _not sure._

Sirius had held his hand and the look on his face when Remus tentatively smiled, only for a second because it hurt, was nothing short of awestruck.

_ “You’ve got to relax,” _ the piercer had said, before Remus inhaled sharply at the hot sting and squeamish push. He’d met Sirius’s anxious grey eyes, holding himself still. He focused on the sweep of his eyelashes and the soft curve of his lips, this beautiful man, rather than pain or discomfort.

 _ “God, you look fucking hot, Moony,”  _ Sirius had murmured fervently in the mall bathroom after they’d gone to find the most outrageous baby socks they could find for the coming miniature Potter. Remus had seen it too, seen what Sirius had, flushed and grinning and confident in that huge rectangular mirror. Sirius kissed him on the opposite corner of his mouth, carefully avoiding the cool metal. _“_ _You’re radiant.” _

_ “You’re the radiant one,”  _ Remus had sighed, stealing another gentle, off-center kiss so as not to put any pressure on his new piercing. He felt _good_ about it.  _ “My star.” _

_ “Your star,”  _ Sirius sighed contentedly before they had to leg it out of the public bathroom. There would be  no groping in the shopping mall. 

“What do you mean?” Sirius asks now, still with his chin hooked over Remus’s shoulder. His grey eyes demand to meet Remus’s, so Remus glances back to the mirror to catch his gaze, holding it steady and avoiding himself. 

“The ring. I don’t know. My face.”

“Your face is one of my favorite things, Moony dearest.”

“ _Sirius._ I’m ser—” he just barely catches that slip. “I’m not joking.”

Remus sounds awkward and unsure and he knows it. He hates it, too, he always wants to be sure of what he knows and means and wants. Right now he doesn’t know if he wants Sirius to lavish and comfort him or leave him alone, go make tea or something equally useless, if he wants space or  not.  He’s  not sure  if he wants Sirius to build him back up, show him how lovely he is (because it must be true- Sirius Black is never wrong) or be left alone to ponder his entire life’s choices and wallow in materialistic worry. 

Sirius stands silently, wordlessly prodding Remus to elaborate. 

He doesn’t, he can’t, he doesn’t know what he’s feeling. “I don’t know,” Remus says again. 

“Try and tell me?” Sirius suggests, stretching a little to brush his lips against Remus’s cheek in more of a caress than a kiss. 

“But....”

“I’ll listen, you know. I will,” Sirius reminds him gently. “I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.”

“Yeah,” Remus says faintly and takes a shallow breath. Loving someone the way he loves Sirius is absolute and if it means he sometimes needs to get over his self-imposed boundaries, he can do it. Sirius does the same. They have pasts that aren’t easy to forget nor move on from but he has _Sirius_ and Sirius has _him._

“I’m confused myself and I can’t  explain  and I know it’s not a big deal, I’m over-exaggerating things—” _like_ _always_ ,  he bites off, but Sirius knows him well enough to hear the silent words anyway. 

“Rems,” Sirius says softly, using the sweet wheedling nickname he rarely uses except for soft, slow mornings and when he wants to tease Remus without bringing out the big cannons— _Remsie _ and  _Remmiekins_.  “It’s clearly not a tiny little thing.”

“But it is!” Remus knows how needlessly frustrated he sounds. Sirius is just being calm and trying to figure out how to help, but Remus can’t accept help, can’t ask for help when he doesn’t even know what’s  wrong,  let alone what he needs. 

“I love you,” Sirius says quietly, not like a filler or a reminder or a tool, but like he’s just stating a fact that should maybe be said right about now. “Just try to tell me, it’s okay. You’re allowed to be upset over things that are small.”

“Thanks, personal therapist,” Remus says, scathing and sarcastic, and  loathes  himself for it. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Mm, don’t be.” Sirius shrugs elegantly, his voice a little muffled by Remus’s jumper. “You of all people know I’m an expert at lashing out when I feel vulnerable.”

Remus tenses at that and asks, “Do I feel vulnerable?”

Sirius steps away. Remus wants to reach out for his missing warmth, but Sirius turns Remus to face him with a hand on his waist and a light kiss to Remus’s nose. “I don’t know. Do you?”

Remus sits down on the cool tile, scooting closer to Sirius until their knees are nearly on top of one another. “I’m just doubting it. Right now. The lip ring, the scars look brighter today. it’s just  hard sometimes to look at the mirror and like that.”

“Like a Greek god staring back at you?”

“I’m not a fucking Greek god, Sirius!” Remus’s knee jerks against Sirius’s, but Sirius doesn’t move, of course. He wouldn’t move away from Remus, especially not when he’s like this, trapped in his own head and trying to find a way to articulate properly what’s wrong. “Maybe you _think_ that because you’re in love, or whatever, or because it’s what you’re supposed to say, but that’s not what I look like!”

He’s quiet.

“Moony?” Remus nods a little in answer. “I don’t think it’s just the lip ring, but you know I can spell it away. Won’t even leave a scar.”

“A  fucking  scar.” Remus laughs. “Good. Great. Lucky, I guess.”

He curves forward then, burying his face in his hands. Sirius smooths his palms over Remus’s shoulders, soothing away hidden knots of tension, stroking the knobs of his spine. “I hate the damn scars and the fucking moon and thinking I can move past  feeling like this completely  randomly. Sometimes it just _hits_ me that I don’t _like_ myself, and...”

Logically, Remus knows that living half his life or more only seeing himself as a monster and a worthless dark creature leaves a lot to build back from. They’ve only just left school, he’s never lived alone with Sirius before— maybe he’s adjusting, maybe he’s always used their friends as a buffer and now all his fears that  he’s not enough  are flooding back in and he doesn’t want Sirius to see that. 

Sirius never was particularly fond of doing what Remus thought he should do. 

No, Sirius has always done what is by his calculations right for the situation. It seems that this situation merits hugging Remus, very tightly, and pressing his mouth to Remus’s forehead. He doesn’t say  _ look at me.  _ He doesn’t say  _it’s all in your head_.  He doesn’t say anything except “I love you, I love you,” knowing Remus wants reassurance and whispers those words over and over in Remus’s ear as if he could replace the bad thoughts with all his love.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispers. He is  _ not  _ crying. He will not, he will not, because by the next day he’ll wonder  _ what was I on?  _ and shake his head and kiss Sirius and know that it’s okay. 

Until the next time he loses sight of that. 

Sirius’s hands tighten where they’re fisted in Remus’s jumper. “You’d better not be.”

“I just—”

“Hey,” Sirius says softly, soothingly, his thumb making circles on Remus’s shoulder blade, dipping beneath the collar of his jumper on every pass. “It’s like you’ve forgotten that I have my moments too— I’m not going to be upset with you because you’re not okay all the time, all right?”

“Yeah,” Remus says quietly.

_“_ Hey, hey, hey, love. Talk to me.” Sirius’s lovely dove gray eyes are dark with concern, and he brings Remus’s hand up to his lips to skim kisses across Remus’s fingertips.

Remus takes a shuddering breath and complies. “I’m just scared sometimes that I’ll wake up— not wake up, but something’ll change, and you’ll see something about me you don’t like, something you can’t ignore, and then...” he swallows, thinking fierce thoughts at the lump in his throat. 

“That will  never,”  Sirius says firmly, lifting Remus’s chin and searching his face, his grey eyes examining and loving, bright and dark at the same time, shining with that beautiful, beautiful lustre. “Never happen. I love every single damn thing about you.”

He leans in to kiss Remus’s mouth ever so softly, carefully avoiding pressuring the lip ring off to the side, mumbling against Remus’s lips, “Every single goddamn thing even if it annoys me because it’s you, and I love  you.  That means all of you.”

“Sirius...” 

“Shh.” Sirius sounds unbearably tender, gathering Remus in his arms. He goes limply, cradled in Sirius’s lap on the cool, slick tiling in their one-bedroom London flat. He and Sirius’s. 

“I love you too, you know,” Remus whispers into Sirius’s chest. He’s wearing his favorite shirt, soft and smelling like smoke and his cologne and the lavender shampoo Remus uses that Sirius _insists_ he doesn’t like but it’s always empty anyways. “All your bloody idiosyncrasies. You really are disgustingly endearing, you know?”

“Mm. I know.” Sirius mouths into Remus’s hair. “Believe it or not, I’m not blind. And you really are a Greek god.”

“Sirius....” 

_Not right now, drown me in compliments later, when I can laugh at you and I don’t feel so raw. When it doesn’t feel like sugared, patronizing half-truths and it feels like us again._

Remus swallows. 

“Sorry.” Sirius blows Remus’s hair off his forehead to kiss it. He twists a strand around his finger, snickering into Remus’s curls. “You need a haircut, love.”

“Can you do it?”

“You want me to?” Sirius sounds surprised. 

“Yeah.” Remus thinks for a few seconds. “Definitely. Show me what you see.”

Sirius shakes his head a little, laughing softly to show he isn’t serious. “Remus, my dear Remy-baby,” he grabs Remus’s arms before he can smack him for that _abhorrent_ nickname, “It’s just you. I just see you.”

“Sappy git.” Remus smiles, a secret hidden smile into his lap, but he knows Sirius can feel it. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!!!! <3


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